Dolphins 17 – Raiders 15

The Dolphins absolutely dominated the Raiders today. In every statistic in the box score, the Dolphins had an advantage. The offense had a huge day in terms of yardage, and the defense was only responsible for giving up six measly points. The special teams almost ruined all of that.

Fortunately, Miami managed to score when it mattered most, converting on a huge 4th and 5 with the game on the line to pull it out, but this one should’ve never been so close. Last week, it was a case of not playing very well that kept Seattle in the game, but when you dominate like the Dolphins did today, executing perfectly on both sides of the ball, there is no reason for a near loss.

Quarterbacks:

Pennington had a very solid day, efficiently running the offense and using the play action. He made some really great throws over the deep middle, including two on the final drive to help set up the winning score. Of course, the biggest play of the day was his completion to Ginn on 4th and 5 on that drive, where once again Chad led the Dolphins to victory. This was the fourth game in a row with ten minutes of time of possession in the fourth quarter for Miami.

It wasn’t all good for Pennington, though. On the first drive of the second half we went three and out in part because of a poor read and a poor throw. Also, there was a ball that Chad had no business ever throwing in Dolphins territory that he was lucky Greg Camarillo came down with; it could have just as easily been a turnover. Finally, although it wasn’t totally his fault, the big mistake was taking a sack for a safety. It was a play action five step drop, so it had no business ever being called, and on top of that no receiver had made his break by the time Chad was under fire, but you still just cannot take a sack there. It was almost the difference in the game.

Running Backs:

All the running backs were great today, with the big bonus being a huge game from Patrick Cobbs. All kinds of Wildcats worked well for the Dolphins today, and the running backs were really unstoppable. Specifically, the Spread Wildcat seems to be becoming the bread and butter formation for Miami. It allows all three running backs to serve as threats, an offense in itself, as opposed to just a series like the original Wildcat.

In the negative column, Ronnie Brown did have a fumble. That was about it though. Ronnie also had some huge gains, and once again Ricky Williams was our best ball carrier. He was beastly all day en route to an outstanding day for the three backs combined. The play that stands out above all else was the terrific design on a fake pitch, reverse pivot, inside handoff to Cobbs where Patrick was not stopping until he reached the goal line. That play put the Dolphins up nine towards the end of the 3rd quarter and featured superior design, a classic Pennington fake, defensive confusion over who to key on, and Cobbs making would-be tacklers miserable. Excellent.

Wide Receivers:

Before we get to what they did receiving the ball, we should all take a moment to appreciate what Ted Ginn does in the open field. He took an end around to the house in the first quarter, and I’m not going to do that run the disservice of trying to describe it in words. It was so phenomenal that you had to see it to believe it, and we should all thanks Cameron and Mueller, amongst all the mistakes that they made, for bringing such a talent to this team.

As far as receiving went, as a unit they didn’t do much, but Ginn had another very solid game catching the ball, his routes continuing to steadily improve. He had a big gain on a ball over the deep middle in the first half, and made a big first down reception to get the team going on their touchdown drive at the end of the third quarter. No play was bigger, however, than the first down reception on 4th and 5 during the game winning drive.

Camarillo had quiet afternoon and Bess dropped two first down passes where he started to look to run before he had the ball secured. He helped make up for it though, with a big catch on the final drive.

Tight Ends:

For the second week in a row, Fasano and Martin were invisible. The Dolphins need to get these guys involved if they hope to have success against the Patriots.

Offensive Line:

From the early part of the game, the Dolphins dominated the Oakland defense up front. They protected Pennington and got a nice push for the running game all day. Especially out of the various Wildcats, the holes were gaping.

Specific positives included an enormous whole thanks to blocks by Long and the pulling guard on the play where Ronnie ended up fumbling. Also, the trickery on the Ginn end arounds was very interesting, with two guards pulling away from the play. On the negative side, Carey missed a block on a passing play when the Dolphins had 1st and 5 (Cobbs was also culpable in protection), and though there were many other factors, the line was ultimately responsible for giving up the sack for a safety. Nevertheless, overall the Dolphins offensive line controlled the line of scrimmage all day, and they played a big part in Miami’s offensive success.

Offensive Coaching:

There were some positives and negatives over the course of the game in terms for play calling. For example, Henning noticed the Raiders attacking on the first play of each of the first two Miami drives, so on the third he made a great call with play action on an underneath route to get the drive going. He followed with a 2nd and 1 draw, another nice bit of play calling.

However, my main issue with how the Dolphins ran their offense has very little to do with what plays they called over the course of the game. The issue is why with such domination the Dolphins could only muster 17 points. I think it comes down to two things. For one, we had extraordinarily poor field position all day, and the special teams are to blame for that. The bigger issue is that we don’t attack or play with any aggression against teams that we are favored against.

When we are underdogs, we tend to open up the playbook, play with reckless abandon, and try our damnedest to put points on the board every time we have the ball. The results speak for themselves. However, when we are favored we seem to lose that aggression and play not to lose.

Against the Raiders, we dominated up front, our running backs were outstanding, Ginn came up big, and Pennington was his usual efficient self. If everybody was so good, how could we let it be possible that we only score 17 and almost lose the game despite our defense’s dominance? The answer is the outlook of how we run our offense.

We should play we the same urgency during every drive of every game as we do when we are unstoppable in the fourth quarter. You can’t start playing tentatively and calling a timid game just because you have the lead. You need to take care of the ball, but attack and do what you do best! Even if you give something up and turn the ball over, at the end of the day you should have so many points by being aggressive that it is insignificant. Don’t look at the scoreboard in the first half. Do what you do and let the scoreboard take care of itself. That is the attitude required to put teams away and win football games easily.

Defensive Line:

The Raiders simply could not handle Jason Ferguson. He penetrated off the ball quickly and caused all kinds of problems for the offense in playing one of his best games of the season.

All day we mixed up our fronts, and all of them were successful and seemed to confuse the Raiders offense. Vonnie Holliday was an absolute monster, as he just seems to be heating up this year. He stopped Russell on a third down scramble at the end of the first quarter, and that play directly led to Russell leaving the game for a series and an 18 yard loss by the Raiders offense. You never like to see injuries, but you damn sure try to hurt people, and Russell leaving the game was a result of Holliday hitting the crap out of him. Also, Vonnie had a nice sack in the second half when he twisted around Ferguson. A great game for #91.

Langford played well again, also, and the entire defensive line had a pretty good game. We ended up with six team sacks, but to be honest I was disappointed with the amount of consistent pressure we had. Also on the negative side, Fargas did get going a bit in the second half, but he was bottled up most of the day. Overall, a very solid day up front, especially from our big two veterans.

Linebackers:

Another active day for the linebackers, as Joey Porter was again the guy finishing it out with a sack on the Raiders’ final possession to seal it. Roth also made a nice tackle for a loss on Darren McFadden when he rolled out to look for an invisible receiver down the field. Both these guys continue to play very good football.

In the middle, Crowder had one of his better efforts in a while. The most impressive thing that he showed was when he made two consecutive breakups during one series in the second half after the Raiders had began targeting him in the passing game. He’s going to need to continue to play well if he hopes to have his contract renewed at the end of the season.

Secondary:

Will Allen had another superb game. He was doing everything, from having great coverage down the field to sacking the quarterback. His speed and savvy make him very difficult to account for when he blitzes off of the slot receiver, so expect to see more of that in the weeks to come. He also stuck his nose in and defended a screen and was seldom the victim on any negative plays. Outstanding game by a player who is only improving on his already stellar play.

On the other hand, I didn’t think Yeremiah Bell had his best game by any means. Though he was still active as usual, and even on his worst day he is a headache for offenses, he missed a few plays that I’ve come to expect him to make. He was beat a few times in coverage, but not included in that was the pass interference penalty that he was called for. First of all, the official called the penalty on Jason Allen, who didn’t actually touch anybody on the play, but more importantly, Bell was playing the ball with every right that the receiver has to it. That was 41 huge yards for the Raiders which they flatly didn’t deserve.

Goodman had a strong game again, and the rest of the secondary was also very good. The only time the Raiders completed any passes was when Russell fired undefendable lasers. Fortunately for the Dolphins, Oakland has yet to develop any offensive consistency, so they were able to bog the Raiders down all day long.

Overall Defense:

It deserves repeating that the Raiders only scored six offensive points all day and didn’t even deserve three of those (they were a direct result of Bell’s phantom PI call). The Dolphins defense was absolutely outstanding all day long and is legitimately becoming a strength of this team. Excellent game all around.

Special Teams:

All the negatives from the game can be lumped into the one pile that is special teams. Besides giving up the punt return touchdown, this group was partially responsible for the safety, and also for the long fields that the offense faced all day long. From the beginning of the say I will go down the list:

-Gave up a big return on the opening kickoff.
-Charlie Anderson ruined another good return, this time by Bess, and we start our first drive at our eight yard line.
-Renaldo Hill, who is a starter forced into special teams out of necessity, makes his second special teams tackle of the game on the Raiders next return.
-Bess catches the ball at the four, actually makes a nice return out of it, but of course another penalty. This time it was Jason Allen, who had a particularly rough day on special temas.
-We start another drive at our own nine yard line.
-Bess lets a punt roll to the six yard line, where we start the drive that ended in a safety.
-Twice people on our return team tackled Ted Ginn.
-93 yard punt return for a touchdown untouched to go down by one with 4:30 left.

That’s a whole lot of negatives. There were a few positives, including a couple of nice punts by Fields, Cobbs’ continued play, the Ginn and Bess together on punt returns look, Brandon London making a good special teams tackle, more Cobbs, the made field goal to win the game, and most importantly, Janikowski doinking the 45 yarder to give us new life. It’s a sad state of affairs when your best play is a bad play by the other team and you are mentioning a tackle as a highlight, but that is our reality. This unit was awful, and despite our utter dominance on offense and defense (check the stat sheet), special teams almost managed to lose us the game.

Not helping matters was that Lechler punted six times with a 52.7 yard average, plus he downed four of those kicks inside the 20! What would you give for a punter like that? Also, a leg like Janikowski’s would be really nice on kickoffs, and I still hold to my belief that keeping a kickoff specialist is absolutely worthwhile in the NFL.

Tim Graham wrote an article about the Dolphins, including reasons for optimism and reasons to “simmer down.” Of his three reasons to “simmer down,” special teams was all three of them, and rightfully so. Special teams almost negated our complete dominance against the Raiders, and though you can bet Sparano will work to fix it, the trouble with special teams is that you can be perfect for every play except one, and that is enough to screw up an entire day.

Renaldo Hill has already been inserted to the special teams from the starting lineup, and after the Oakland game Miami added wedge buster Eric Walden to their roster. Walden has 10 special teams tackles for the Chiefs this year and is quite the physical presence. We’ll see if he can make a difference in the pivotal Patriots showdown.

Finally, if there is one encouraging thing from the Raiders game as far as special teams is concerned, this is it. The following is from a Sun-Sentinel article by Dave Hyde:

“And there was Brandon London, alone at his locker, his voice in anguish, his words in pain.

‘I can't cherish this win like some of the other guys in here,’ he said.

London kept having this vision of running downfield on punt coverage late in the fourth quarter. Oakland's Johnnie Lee Higgins caught the punt at his 7-yard line. London was in place for the hit.

‘I got pushed out of the way by a smaller defensive back and turned around and watched [Higgins] go 93 yards,’ he said. ‘That just can't happen.’

His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘That's going to be with me for the whole week.’”

The kind of character that London and the rest of the team possess, the uneasy feeling that needs to follow you when you know you could do better, that is what has made the Miami Dolphins a winning team this year. You can bet that they are going to work their tails off to fix it, if not for me or you, so that they can look at themselves in the mirror.

Notes:

-I couldn’t believe the number of motion penalties on the Raiders. They absolutely killed themselves with countless false starts and offsides. That was a big difference in this game, something as simple as staying onsides.

-Asomugha, who is widely considered the best corner in the league, will be a free agent this off-season. Whether or not he will be available is another thing, but he’s a guy who is the best at what he does at a position of need for Miami. Another guy like that who will be a free agent is Albert Haynesworth, who is a 4-3 tackle now, but the leading candidate for defensive player of the year and Kris Jenkins made a similar switch very successfully this year. Again, he also might not be available, but is scheduled to be free.

-Hochuli and his crew had another bad day today. They blew the pass interference call on Bell and Hochuli also apologized for missing Pennington calling a timeout at the end of the first half, costing Miami six seconds and maybe another field goal.